Why is farmers 'willingness to insure agricultural insurance not high?

In recent years, various localities have taken measures to enhance the ability of farmers to resist natural risks, such as improving the level of weather forecast and improving infrastructure conditions, and to make up for farmers' post-disaster losses by strengthening the construction of agricultural insurance system. What restricts the enthusiasm of farmers to take out insurance? How to hold the "umbrella" of agricultural insurance more firmly? Please take a look at our reporter's survey.

As the saying goes, there are unexpected events in the sky. On June 30th, a sudden hailstorm hit Beijing's Daxing and Fangshan districts, causing severe damage to nearly 240000 mu of farmland and orchards. The reporter saw in the orchard of Lihua Village, Panggezhuang Town, Daxing District, that there were fallen leaves and fruits hit by hail everywhere, and the fruits hanging from the branches also showed signs of being injured.

"the hail was as big as a walnut. After more than ten minutes, the pear was smashed more than 80%." When it comes to the hail that suddenly arrived at 5 o'clock in the morning, Tian Shuqing, a fruit farmer in Lihua Village, is still very sad. "there are not many pear trees hanging on more than 20 mu, and the loss is about 80,000 yuan. There is no hope this year!"

Lihua Village is located on the east bank of the Yongding River in the southwest suburb of Beijing. the pear tree in the village is the largest old tree in North China. Almost every household has fruit trees. There are more than 30 varieties, such as Jingbai pear, "Jinba yellow", Guangli, and so on. In normal years, one mu of land can be sold for about 4000 yuan.

Hail has been encountered in previous years, but it has not been encountered as serious as this year for many years. What is even more sad for fruit farmers is that the hailstorm not only led to the end of the harvest this year, but also caused the flower buds to fail to form next year and have a great impact on next year's harvest because the hail fell a lot of branches and leaves. Moreover, if mismanaged at a later stage, production may not recover within four to five years.

After the hail disaster, Li Songtao, a senior engineer at the Industrial Development Department of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape Architecture and Greening, rushed to the disaster area to guide the affected fruit farmers to take post-disaster remedial measures. "clear the fallen fruit as soon as possible to control the breeding bacteria, and then spray the fruit trees with insect control solution and give nutrition injections so that the trees can recover as soon as possible." He suggested to the farmers.

Li Haiyan in the same village also wanted to cry without tears, and her family suffered more losses than the old Tian family. Not only 15 mu of pear trees were affected, but also 3 mu of watermelons were smashed into flowers by hail. According to the current market, watermelons can be sold for more than 10, 000 yuan per mu. With the loss of pear trees, the income will be reduced by at least 120000 yuan this year. "Last year, I just bought a house for my son and a car for my daughter. I wanted to have a good harvest this year, but a hailstorm was all wasted." Li Haiyan, who was full of confidence, can only sigh now.

The reporter learned from the Beijing Municipal Committee of Agriculture that the hailstorm mainly occurred in Daxing and Fangshan, causing a total of 231200 mu of farmland, greenhouses, and fruit trees in 17 villages and towns, with an economic loss of 443 million yuan.

The only thing Tian Shuqing is looking forward to now is to receive the fixed loss result from the insurance company as soon as possible, so as to reduce some losses to the hail disaster.

There is a big difference between the amount of claims and farmers' expectations.

In the face of frequent natural disasters, it is particularly important to improve the ability of disaster prevention and reduction. In fact, after the "July 21" torrential rain disaster in 2012, Beijing attached great importance to agricultural disaster prevention and reduction, continuously strengthened capacity-building, and made efforts to reduce the impact of natural disasters such as drought and flood, and achieved remarkable results. However, for natural disasters such as tornadoes and hail, which have a small scope and great destructive power, it is still difficult to accurately forecast under the current technical conditions. Once the disaster is affected, the importance of agricultural insurance to the recovery of production after the disaster is highlighted.

According to the statistics of the Fangshan District Garden and Greening Bureau, the hailstorm affected the forestry industry in the region of nearly 39000 mu, of which only 37% of the area has taken out insurance. From the point of view of the whole city, in addition to breeding pigs, live pigs and other major breeds in the breeding industry, the underwriting scale of most other types of insurance is not more than half.

The reporter learned that in order to ensure that agricultural insurance can protect the interests of farmers, the Beijing Municipal Government has continuously increased its policy support. For example, 50% of the insurance premium is borne by the municipal finance, and 10% to 40% is subsidized by the district finance. Individual farmers only have to bear 10% at least.

Take Daxing as an example, farmers who grow watermelons only need to bear the insurance premium of 18 yuan per mu, and in the event of a disaster, they can get a compensation of up to 1000 yuan. If a pear is paid 32 yuan per mu of land, the maximum compensation will be 2000 yuan. It is estimated that, on the whole, farmers can get 102 yuan risk protection if they pay 1 yuan. In terms of varieties, the total number of agricultural insurance varieties in Beijing has reached 33, leading the country.

With such a preferential policy, why are farmers still not willing to participate in insurance? Gao Zhenzong, a fruit farmer in Baicaowa Village, Doudian Town, Fangshan District, explained that because of the geographical location, the climate here has been relatively stable. The last time there was such a heavy hail was in 1975. So, for so many years, he has been taking chances. However, the hailstorm also awakened his sense of risk, and he should actively insure and reduce the economic losses caused by the disaster in the future.

In addition to the fluke mentality, more farmers are unwilling to participate in insurance because they feel that the amount of compensation cannot make up for the loss at all. "they only count falling fruit, even if half of it is left, they won't lose it if it doesn't fall to the ground." Tian Shuqing said, "in fact, the injured pears can not be sold, and they only calculate according to the price of ordinary pears, but the price of white pears is much higher than ordinary pears." Tian Shuqing calculated that in a normal year, it can sell about 4000 yuan per mu, while the insurance company can only pay a maximum of 2000 yuan, and the actual amount of compensation is less than half of the loss. More obviously, watermelons, the maximum compensation per mu can only be 1000 yuan, and according to the current market, the income of watermelons per mu should be more than 10,000 yuan, and the amount of compensation can only make up for 10% of the loss.

Due to the serious shortage of water and land resources in Beijing, and high labor costs, farmers have paid attention to the development of high-end green and organic agriculture in recent years, mainly developing famous and high-quality varieties of fruits. The market price of these agricultural products is much higher than that of ordinary varieties. Once the disaster is affected, the amount of compensation paid by insurance companies is indeed difficult to make up for farmers' losses.

Promote the transformation of agricultural insurance from insurance cost to insurance income

After the "June 30" hail disaster, Daxing and Fangshan actively took measures to save themselves after the disaster and reduce farmers' losses. Lin Keqing, vice mayor of Beijing, pointed out during a survey in the disaster area that the next step should be to give priority to agricultural insurance work and actively carry out various post-disaster handling work. Insurance companies should complete the compensation work as soon as possible, so that all compensation should be paid, the compensation should be high, and the agricultural season should not be missed.

In response to the question that farmers think that the compensation is too little, the reporter interviewed the insurance company, and an industry insider told the reporter that agricultural insurance is the insurance with the highest compensation rate. At present, agricultural insurance is policy insurance, which is subsidized by the government, and insurance companies reluctantly do it. "the compensation rate is high, and the labor cost is also the highest. once out of danger, personnel have to get to every piece of land at the first time. Agricultural insurance is hardly profitable." Industry insiders say.

Data show that last year, the premium income of agricultural insurance in Beijing totaled 512 million yuan, and the reparations paid reached 425 million yuan, with a compensation rate of 83 percent, down 21 percentage points from 104 percent in 2014, but the comprehensive cost rate of the five insurance companies still exceeded 100 percent. The simple compensation rate of 10 kinds of insurance, such as wheat, is more than 100%, and the compensation rate of pear is 205%.

The proportion of compensation is so high, why can't farmers feel it? "this is because there is a misunderstanding of agricultural insurance." Zhang Qiao, director of the Agricultural risk Management Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, explained, "at present, China's agricultural insurance is still in its infancy, ensuring the input of the basic cost of crops, not the income of agricultural products. Compensation payments can help farmers resume reproduction, but not enough to make up for the loss of harvest."

"when there is no disaster, the money is paid for nothing, and when there is a disaster, there is little money to make up." During the interview, many farmers said that not paying much is of course a good thing, but the problem is that in the event of a disaster, farmers do not have a strong sense of "achievement" of this policy. Cui Hongzhi, a researcher at the Institute of Rural Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said.

The No. 1 document of the CPC Central Committee this year proposes to take agricultural insurance as an important means to support agriculture, expand the coverage of agricultural insurance, increase the variety of insurance, and improve the level of risk protection. Zhang Qiao said that in addition to the "guaranteed cost" model of "low security and wide coverage" currently implemented, there is also a "guaranteed income" model with the policy goal of ensuring farmers' welfare. however, this model puts forward higher requirements for the financial resources of government subsidies and farmers' own ability to pay, and it is necessary to find a balance between a higher level of compensation and more reasonable insurance premiums.

Li Haiping, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Committee of Agriculture and spokesman, said that during the 13th five-year Plan period, Beijing will gradually increase the amount of insurance for relevant types of insurance in the light of the actual situation of agricultural production, popularize insurance by grades, and at the same time further study the transformation of agricultural insurance from insurance cost to insurance income, so that the "umbrella" of agricultural insurance can be held more firmly.